Exploring the Gastrointestinal "Nemabiome": Deep Amplicon Sequencing to Quantify the Species Composition of Parasitic Nematode Communities.

ABSTRACT: Parasitic helminth infections have a considerable impact on global human health as well as animal welfare and production. Although co-infection with multiple parasite species within a host is common, there is a dearth of tools with which to study the composition of these complex parasite communities. Helminth species vary in their pathogenicity, epidemiology and drug sensitivity and the interactions that occur between co-infecting species and their hosts are poorly understood. We describe the first application of deep amplicon sequencing to study parasitic nematode communities as well as introduce the concept of the gastro-intestinal "nemabiome". The approach is analogous to 16S rDNA deep sequencing used to explore microbial communities, but utilizes the nematode ITS-2 rDNA locus instead.

SUBMITTER: Avramenko RW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4668017 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature